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HTC has revealed some of the intricate and innovative design and manufacturing techniques that go into making the gorgeous sliver of metal it calls the HTC One.
The design video, first shown as part of the One’s launch presentation according to Engadget, is replete with cromulent phrases such as “holistic, beautiful experience”, “no part-breaks”, “electro-chemical etching process”, “nano-matrix structure” and my personal favourite, “chamfer”. Check it out, phone fans.
Poor man’s Jony Ive Daniel Hundt outlines the design vision and manufacturing designer Jethro Liou provides the jargon. It’s fascinating seeing the cutters, drills and hoses that carve a simple block of metal into a fabulous phone — the precision is genuinely impressive.
The One lost a mark in our review for dreary quotidian considerations such as being unexpandable and unrepairable, and insisting on having its BlinkFeed social app on all the time, taking up one of your five homescreens. But there’s no denying it’s the best-made, most beautiful gadget of the year, knocking the more practical and powerful Galaxy S4 into a cocked hat on the looks front.
In many ways the One is the phone for Android fans who won’t admit their admiration for Apple’s design and manufacturing — the influence is clear in this video. It’s set an incredibly high bar, and Ive and co are going to have to come up with something unprecedented with the iPhone 5S to top it.
That seems unlikely. The S variations so far have been very similar to their predecessors in design, focusing on specs and software improvements. There may also be the distraction of a rumoured cheap iPhone to be designed and built.
Do you think the One is the best phone of the year? Can Apple possibly top it? Would you rather have an S4? Declare your allegiance in the comments below, or over on our machine-tooled Facebook page.
